A collection of books I've read. Not recommendations per se — just references.
I'm writing these down as they come to mind, so the order means nothing.
Behind the Product (幕后产品)
Written by a former product manager at NetEase Cloud Music1. It breaks down how to dig into user needs, analyze them, and design products around them — all from a PM's perspective. It also covers operations, product analytics, and UX design.
Roles, scenarios, and workflows form a classic framework for analyzing requirements. The key is to dissect a requirement from these three angles — to carefully uncover the real user psychology, usage context, and workflows hidden behind a seemingly valid request, and then decide whether it's worth building.
Deep Learning from Scratch (深度学習入門)
Written by Japanese scholar Koki Saito2. The series now has four volumes, with the fifth on the way — I'm one of the reviewers.
The writing is approachable with great illustrations. After reading it, you'll have a solid grasp of most foundational deep learning concepts and be ready to tackle research papers.
No programming background required. I'd suggest coding along with the book and building the project from scratch yourself — really understanding what each line does. I put together a configurable, runnable Jupyter Notebook while reading, which you can preview on this GitHub repo.
The Minimalist Entrepreneur
The author built Gumroad, a platform for buying and selling digital assets. In this book, he lays out best practices for bootstrapping a SaaS company on a lean budget, along with genuinely useful advice for founders.
At the very end, he makes his most important point: the key to entrepreneurship is simply to start.
Refactoring UI
Written by the creators of Tailwind CSS. It's practical and easy to follow — covering common UI design techniques and pitfalls across a wide range of scenarios.
Most of the content is immediately actionable. After reading it, my UI design genuinely improved. The difference between good and bad design often comes down to just a few pixels.
Designing Design (設計中的設計)
Kenya Hara — the designer behind Xiaomi's logo redesign — distills years of design experience in this book. Drawing on excellent work from various Japanese designers, it doesn't teach practical design techniques. Instead, it approaches design from a philosophical angle. His core argument: design is fundamentally about communication.
"In the media landscape, designers play a role similar to doctors — their job is to solve problems through information delivery."
The Best Interface Is No Interface (无界面交互)
The author argues that we've fallen into an "interface trap." As the internet and mobile devices have evolved, we've gotten used to pointing every problem at a screen. But for many problems, no screen is the best solution.
He also makes the point that UI and UX shouldn't be lumped together — UX is its own discipline entirely.
Here's a great example: a car company once built an app to open the trunk. But what people actually wanted was a way to open it when their hands were full. Sweeping a foot under the bumper turned out to be the far better solution.
You Are What You Eat (你是你吃出来的)
The author, Xia Meng, was seriously ill but recovered through science-based nutrition.
The book offers a practical set of dietary plans — including daily food pairings and how to calculate your nutrient intake.
Her key insight: modern humans eat very differently from our ancestors, but our genes haven't caught up. We're not built for refined grains and food additives.
Steppenwolf
A novel by the German literary giant Hermann Hesse, telling the strange story of a man who calls himself the Steppenwolf.
After finishing it, I felt like I was the Steppenwolf.
Educated: A Memoir
Tara Westover's memoir about how education transformed her life. It's one of those rare inspirational books that actually feels grounded and real — while also making you rethink the power of education.
Fun fact: the Chinese title was personally chosen by the author. It translates roughly to "You should fly to your mountain like a bird."